I've got a confession... I have recently forgotten about my love affair w/ mtn biking. After being introduced to it while living in FLA (swamp biking actually) 15yrs ago, I have noticed that I have stopped looking at the mtn bike sections of catalogs and magazines lustfully as I once had. I blame this loss of desire squarely on the shoulders of a workmate who invited me to ride a metric in the Tenn. mountains. 62 miles! The longest mtn bike ride that I had done was 36m and I was spent. After being convinced that I could hang w/ them (they would wait on my slow butt if needed & loaned me an "extra" sweet cannondale road bike to try this ride with) I decide to give it a try. After all I could grab the sag wagon back if I was reeling. WOW! that was a blast, beautiful scenery and what a sense of accomplishment.

I now try to get in 40-60m every weekend that I can spare and weeknight rides of 10-15m around my homebase of Woodstock,GA (northern burb of Atlanta).